A Slice of Lemon: Past Player Notes

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Earlier WebNotes mentioned the first two food collection efforts for SecondBite in July.

A further three collections have been conducted since then, which takes us up to five for the year. All were well attended with five or more players each time (max eight required). “The players that attend really enjoy it.”

We thank everyone who got involved and helped out.

Photo: Peter Lemon

PIVOT LUNCH II - ROUND 18 VS. PEGS

As with the first Pivot Lunch this year, there was a full house, not least thanks to the work of Cullen Gunn in securing the presence of a large number of players and associated persons from the 1988 Reserves and 1990 Firsts and Reserves Premiership teams, some of who came from interstate for the event.

Of the Firsts side of 1990 all but four were able to attend, and of these three apologised for not being able to get there. Only Firsts coach Allan Quaife and player Dom Colaci could not be located.

Cullen Gunn has kindly supplied us with the following notes in relations to his teams’ reunion:

“Jimmy Legoe and MC Boner (Simon Bones) were fantastic and Guest Speaker Greg Davies was hilarious and a great bloke. All bar four from 1990 Firsts, about half the 1990 Reserves, and most of 1988 Reserves Premiership in attendance. Plus a heap from the Club start to now, including the legendary Spiden brothers (John and Bruce).

“Fraser Simmo (his kids turned up later which was nice) and Don Mcleod came from Tassie, Sam Baylis from the Northern Territory, Andy Macmillan from Perth, Tim Jackson from South Australia, John Henderson from Denni (I think), Mark Williams from Horsham and Pizzle (Chris Pearson) from Malvern. And Andrew MacDonald turned up despite being wheelchair-bound after recently having been crushed by a four-tonne tree limb.

“Dual premiership players Geoff Lavender, Craig Hollis (even had his medallions, see photo below), and Will Davis were in attendance, as was games record holder Tony Brocksopp (not sure if he still is) and 1990 Norm Smith Medallist Slamin Sammy Furphy.

Craig Hollis, played in the 1988 and 1990 Reserves' Premiership teams

Tony Brocksopp (left) current Club games record holder

Tony Brocksopp (above) still holds the record for games played for the Club – 287. With no current player having reached even 200 we suspect it is a record which will stand for a long time to come.

Of our current players Colby O’Brien (187 games) heads the list, although perhaps President Steve Lansdell (235 games) could contemplate a comeback.

Cullen Gunn continued:

“At least four ex-Presidents and 8-10 Best & Fairest winners were present (14 if we include the great Colby who popped his head in with Burbs at one point). This includes Chris Pearson who won two Ressies B&Fs. Do you remember his acceptance speech in 90 Pete? It went something like this:

“This is my second B & F award. Slav (Geoff Lavender) hasn’t won one and neither has Don McLeod, which makes me twice the player of each of them and four times the player of both of them put together.”

“Very, very funny - although worth pointing out Slav and Donny were unlikely to win a Twos B & F as they mostly played in the ones.

“I am reliably informed the VAFA reps were pretty impressed and had a good day, as did the Councillors and Sponsors and we did follow your pre-game instructions and behaved (in the general sense of the word).

“Fantastic response from the group with set-up and clean-up. Beforehand: Richard Burns, Rosco Macdonald, Bern O’Halloran, Mike Davis, Charlie Richo, Matt Edmonds, Tim Jackson put in a fantastic effort with guidance from Jimmy Legoe and Stevie Landsell. In the arvo following the Lunch clean-up Cam Stewart, Pete Jones, Pete Clarke, Dougal, Angus McDougall, Peter Hayes and boys from the morning all made it run pretty well.

“Not to mention the fantastic efforts of Ruth and Georgie doing the food - which was terrific - and Mango’s wine.

Geeze that silver lift makes your head spin late at night…..”

Dougal Morrison and Matt Edmonds.

Current players may well recognise Eddo who has been one of our umpiring panel for Reserves matches this year and over a number of previous seasons.

It might explain some of those decisions earlier in the year.

FAMILY TIES

We’ve submitted a number of items this year on the strong family ties present in the Club. We thank Di Officer for sending this photo taken just after the Club 18’s premiership win.

It features Jo Kemp, Rob Officer, John Graham and Ollie Graham, all of whom it seems are cousins.

MATCH AT GGS

Among the photos taken at Geelong Grammar when we played there on 23 July is this one below.

The bloke on the right, protein- and carbo-loading, is Baz Seymour who played 66 games for the Club from 1956 to 1959, and who was a member of the Firsts Premiership teams of 1956 (D Section) and 1957 (C Section).

That’s Baz second from the left in the back row below, in the only photo which the Club has from 1956.

From the same era was Adrian Monger who played 26 games from 1954 to 1958 and who passed away just a few weeks ago.

That’s him in the near middle of the back row in a shot taken in 1955 (the only one we have for that year as well), probably in a finals match at St. Kevin’s school oval.